The observations of the Chorus, descriptive of Samson's dejected appearance in this situation, are very fine, contrasted with the recollection of his former mighty actions and triumphs :

O mirrour of our fickle state,
Since man on earth unparallel'd,
The rarer thy example stands,

By how much from the top of wondrous glory,
Strongest of mortal men,

To lowest pitch of abject fortune thou art fallen.

The dialogues between Samson and his father are every where supported with force, elevation, and moral wisdom; and the unexampled simplicity of the language in which they are conveyed augments the deep impression which they every where make.

Perhaps, as a summary of divine dispensations, nothing even in Milton can be found so awful and comprehensive.

Then bursts forth, at verse 667, that complaint of most deep and stupendous eloquence, beginning,

God of our fathers, what is man!

Then enters Dalila, with the renewal of all her arts, and coquetries, and false smiles. With what a proud and overwhelming scorn does the hero treat her insidious advances! what a contrast is Dalila to Eve, even when, like Eve to Adam, she affects to own her transgression! Samson exclaims, v. 748.

Out, out, hyæna! these are thy wonted arts,
And arts of every woman false like thee,
To break all faith, all vows, deceive, betray;
Then, as repentant, to submit, beseech,
And reconcilement move with feign'd remorse,
Confess, and promise wonders in her change;

Not truly penitent, but chief to try

Her husband, how far urged his patience bears,
His virtue or weakness which way to assail :
Then with more cautious and instructed skill
Again transgresses, and again submits;
That wisest and best men full oft beguiled,
With goodness principled not to reject
The penitent, but ever to forgive,
Are drawn to wear out miserable days,
Entangled with a poisonous bosom snake,
If not by quick destruction soon cut off,
As I by thee, to ages an example.

As the dialogue goes on, each party speaks in that natural train which leads to the consummation of the tragedy; and with poetic force and plenitude of rich sentiment, which belong to Milton alone.

All poetry of a high order is produced by a union of all the best faculties of the mind, and all the noblest emotions of the heart. What is called the understanding, or reason, alone, will produce no poetry at all: even the imagination added to it will not be sufficient, unless there be sentiment and pathos raised by what that imagination presents. To supply the materials of that imagination, there must be observation, knowledge, learning, and memory. In the amalgamation of all these Milton's drama excels.

The character of Samson Agonistes is magnificently supported: he speaks always in a tone becoming his circumstances, his position, his sufferings, and his destiny: every thing is grand, animated, natural, and soul-elating.

It is a minor sort of poetry to relate things as a standerby the author must throw himself into the character of the person represented, and speak in his name. Pope, in his characters of men and women, tells us their several opinions and passions; but these opinions and passions should be uttered by themselves. There is a sympathy we feel with

VOL. V.

B

the eloquent relater of his own sorrows, which cannot be raised by the relation of a third person.

The character of Manoah, Samson's father, is full of nature and parental affection.

The Chorus is every where attractive by poetry, moral wisdom, and eloquent pathos. I will not disguise my opinion, that the versification of these lyrical parts is occasionally, and only occasionally, inharmonious, abrupt, and harsh; and such as my ear can scarcely reconcile to any sort of metre.

The sudden presage which prompted Samson to consent to exhibit himself in the theatre, after the stern reluctance he had previously expressed, is very sublime.

The tone of the whole drama is in the highest degree of elevation the thoughts, sentiments, and words are those of a mental giant.

Added to the mighty interest which these create, is the conviction that through the whole the poet has a relation to his own case;-his blindness, his proscription, his poverty,

With darkness, and with danger compass'd round;

his fortitude, his defiance, his unimpaired strength, his loftiness of soul, his conscious power from the vastness of his intellect, and the firmness of his principles.

OF THAT SORT OF DRAMATICK POEM

WHICH IS CALLED TRAGEDY.'

[WRITTEN BY MILTON HIMSELF.]

TRAGEDY, as it was anciently composed, hath been ever held the gravest, moralest, and most profitable of all other poems: therefore said by Aristotle to be of power, by raising pity and fear, or terrour, to purge the mind of those and such like passions, that is, to temper and reduce them to just measure with a kind of delight, stirred up by reading or seeing those passions well imitated. Nor is Nature wanting in her own effects to make good his assertion: for so, in physick,' things of

1

Of that sort of dramatick poem, called Tragedy. Milton, who was inclined to puritanism, had good reason to think that the publication of his Samson Agonistes' would be very offensive to his brethren, who held poetry, and particularly that of the dramatic kind, in the greatest abhorrence: and, upon this account, it is probable, that, in order to excuse himself from having engaged in this proscribed and forbidden species of writing, he thought it expedient to prefix to his play a formal defence of tragedy. T. WARTON.

2 For so, in physick, &c. These expressions of Milton may be supposed to refer to the doctrine of signatures then in vogue; which had been introduced by Paracelsus between the years 1530 and 1540, and which inferred the

:

melancholick hue and quality are used against melancholy, sour against sour, salt to remove salt humours hence philosophers and other gravest writers, as Cicero, Plutarch, and others, frequently cite out of tragick poets, both to adorn and illustrate their discourse. The apostle Paul himself thought it not unworthy to insert a verse of Euripides into the text of Holy Scripture,

propriety of the use of any vegetable or mineral in medicine, from the similarity of colour, shape, or appearance, which these remedies might bear to the part affected. Thus yellow things, as saffron, turmeric, &c. were given in liver complaints, from their analogy of colour to the bile; and other remedies were given in nephritic disorders, because the seed or leaf of the plant resembled the kidney. See Paracelsus,Labyrinth. Med.' c. 8. and Dr. Pemberton's very elegant preface to the English edition of the London Dispensary.'-Dunster.

66

3 A verse of Euripides. The verse, here quoted, is " Evil communications corrupt good manners:" but I am inclined to think that Milton is mistaken in calling it a verse of Euripides; for Jerome and Grotius, (who published the fragments of Menander) and the best commentators, ancient and modern, say that it is taken from the Thais' of Menander, and it is extant among the fragments of Menander, p. 79. Le Clerc's edit. Such slips of memory may be

found sometimes in the best writers.-NEWTON.

6

Mr. Glasse, the learned translator of this tragedy into Greek iambics, agrees with Dr. Newton. Dr. Macknight, in his excellent Translation of the Epistles,' is of opinion, that the sentiment is of elder date than the time of Menander; that it was one of the proverbial verses commonly received among the Greeks, the author of which cannot now be known. Clemens Alexandrinus calls it a tragic